Copland: Billy the Kid (suite); Third Symphony

"When one listens to music from France, Germany, England, Italy and particularly Russia and Spain, he can usually discover its origin from the particular national flavour which dominates it. Until a few years ago, however, it was all but impossible to do this with American music. The reason was not hard to find: the European nations were rich in folk songs and dances whose characteristics of rhythm, melody, harmony or colour were reflected in the works of native composers. America, the great melting-pot, on the other hand, possessed no such deep-rooted national musical language, no folk heritage upon which to base a characteristic style. The only true American musical idiom was jazz, so it seemed, and that wasn't being worked into concert music very successfully. Today, all these concepts have changed; and one of the men chiefly responsible for changing them was Aaron Copland" (CD notes, adapted from original notes by Paul Affelder, 1959).

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